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Sports seasons have begun

It’s time to wash the sand from your toes put the road maps away and wrap up those summer vacations. The high school sports seasons have begun.

Yes, school doesn’t start until Wednesday, Aug. 6 – which to me seems weird starting in the middle of the week – but public school football started this past Friday.

Football squads got out of the weight rooms and jumped out into the heat – unless predicted thunderstorms rolled through – on Friday, the first day allowed for conditioning. The first day allowed for practice in pads is this Friday, the same official first day of practice for every other fall sport.

From the schedules I have thus far, it appears that coach Mike Leverett’s Harlem High School softball squad will be the first team to hit the field, coming off their Georgia High School Association Class AA state runner-up finish. They play host to their annual Chick-fil-A tournament at Patriots Park on Friday, Aug. 9 and Saturday, Aug. 10.

Next up and spiking interest, Greenbrier gets volleyball underway on Tuesday, Aug. 12, playing host to a tri-match with Lakeside and newest area member Cross Creek. Greenbrier and Lakeside were two of the top teams in Area 2-AAAAA in 2013, so it will be interesting to see if the early-season matchup is an indicator of anything.

Cross country gets running on Saturday, Aug. 16, with Greenbrier again playing host, beginning the third year of races at Wildwood Park that day at 8 a.m. Wildwood Park is scheduled to be the venue for no less than four meets during the season including the Region 2-AAAAA meet.

Last and certainly not least, football’s regular season begins on Friday, Aug. 22 with locals clashing. For the first time, Augusta Christian of the South Carolina Independent School Association will “travel” to Augusta Prep, now of the Georgia Independent School Association.

Yep, anything under five miles requires quotation marks for the word travel.

Augusta Christian won the SCISA Class AAA state championship two years ago while Prep won the Glory For Christ state title last year. I hope this is a budding rivalry.

Across town, with a little over 15 miles separating them, Harlem will welcome in Greenbrier to begin the year.

It will be the first of their two games against county foes as they play host to Grovetown in the Warriors’ season-open the following week.